


goshenite

by fated_addiction



Series: gemology [5]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal, Japanese Drama
Genre: Angst, F/M, Past Lives, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 01:59:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3156764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Mamoru has never made a decision without purpose.</i> Usagi, Mamoru, and the consequences of a past life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	goshenite

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the [_gemology_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/198065) series, following [_double refraction_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3151550).
> 
> Spoilers all the way up to and including Act 13. Also taking plenty of liberties with the way SMC may or may not handle the R arc, so I'm just going to go ahead and call it the 'slight manga spoilers' spoilers.
> 
> Also of note. Goshenite is actually a species of colorless beryl. And in the past, another fun fact, it was used for manufacturing eyeglasses because of its transparency. /toomuchtriviacrack

This isn't about smoke and mirrors.

Mamoru has never made a decision without purpose.

-

They come back and the night is warm. Usagi collapse in the circle, between all of them, her knees giving way because she is _exhausted_ and he really doesn't know how to reach forward and hold her just yet.

"I'm all right," she says, and Minako is the first to kneel with her, her fingers in her hair as the rest of the girls circle around her too. His mind is blank. Then there's a flash. Usagi is laughing. Then she isn't.

His fingers twitch.

"We should go," Rei says and looks around.

The park is quiet. He looks down at his wrist. He's wearing a watch and what's left of a uniform. Mamoru remembers the sequence of events: school, more school, Usagi and _trouble_ , then nothing because powerlessness has so many faces. He looks back at Usagi.

"She's right," he murmurs. She nods. "I'll walk with you," she says too.

The girls don't protest. Luna watches him, then her, and he sighs before reaching forward and taking her hand. She's warm and he breathes.

Her thumb skirts against the back of his hand. "Let's go," she says.

He can only nod.

The weight of his head is somewhat unreal. He has learned to process things somewhere between ideally and useful. It's how you're supposed to survive alone, for him it's worked up until this point, hand in hand with the drive to find his answers. His fingers touch his chest. He feels the pouch puff against them, as if to answer back.

They walk this way though, deeper into the park because he lives closer to the city and she runs parallel closer to his school. He tries to think of other things: it's over, this is _really_ her hand, and he is no closer to any sort of answer but for now it is what it is.

"You're quiet," he says finally.

Usagi laughs. He breathes at the sound.

"I'm tired. I used a lot of my energy." She's gentle. Her gaze meets his. "So did you," she says. "Do you have school --"

"Not going tomorrow," he murmurs. He flushes, embarrassed. "I won't be able to focus."

"Now," she says dryly. "That's a lie."

Mamoru shakes his head. 

He can't tell her the simple things, how good it feels to hold her hand, just hold her hand; how soft that hand is and how he's learning (re-learning) all her ticks, how moving her fingers over his hand is just as much as of a comfort to her. It scares him to know her this well and not really know why. There are the facts.

He's just never believed in second chances like this.

They stay quiet until they arrive at his apartment. He lets go of her hand in the elevator, rubbing the pouch just directly over his heart. He thinks: _they saved my life_. He remembers Usagi and the girls and the guilt rises again. This time it is different and it is the same. He shuts the door behind them though, just as he leads her in by the shoulders, brushing his mouth against the back of her neck.

"Mamo-chan," she breathes, finally, and he flushes when she turns in his arms. "What's going on?"

His mouth curls. "Where to start?" he teases and she laughs. She looks exhausted, he thinks. Older, even. His fingers brush against her eyes and they brush close. "We should sleep," he says. "And you have school tomorrow."

"Don't remind me," she mutters.

They won't talk about it tonight. He can't. She probably knows. It's not right, considering. He's careful though, gently placing the pouch with pieces of stone, all the pieces of stone -- gems, he thinks -- on a table by the door. Answers, he thinks and then stops; there isn't much for that, it won't come all at once.

They are alive, you know.

-

Usagi leaves for school earlier than he expects. She kisses him at the door, misses his mouth, hits his nose, and laughs when it wrinkles.

It happens so suddenly though because then, there, her hand is wrapped around the pouch and not her school bag. Her gaze studies it. He cannot pull out what she is thinking. He watches her mouth move though: _nephrite_ , _zoisite_ , _jadeite_ , and _kunzite_. She doesn't open the pouch.

"Will you talk to them?" she asks.

He looks away and leans against the wall. "I don't know," he says. He pauses and rubs his face. "I don't know what I want to say and if, if -- there's anything to say at all."

Usagi steps forward, taking his hand. She unwraps his fingers, tucking the bag between them. It's soft and warm and he hates it all too suddenly. His head begins to throb and he remembers simple things: _i was a boy and i loved them like brothers_. He remembers that and his fingers push into the bag.

"You should go to school," he murmurs.

Usagi nods. "I know."

"I'll walk with you tomorrow."

Her eyes are bright. There is still no hesitation.

"I know," she says.

-

Changes are sharp. Their memories are still young and suddenly, there is a small child that falls from the sky and everything is different again.

He gave the girls their chances first. It was purely selfish; he doesn't know what to say to them and in turn, it's only made things stranger and harsher. He knows that Usagi keeps the girls closer and if he were ever to make a mistake, if the girls were to ever follow, she would step in. She is letting him have this and he doesn't know why.

This is not the first time he pulls each pouch out.

There is a small box on his coffee table. Sometimes he keeps the stones together. Sometimes he keeps the stones apart. They stay there and he wrestles with his need mostly because there is Usagi and there are the girls and there are things that blend, twist, and write themselves into _future_.

Kunzite is the first to appear, sometimes the only one to appear. It's loyalty. It's not loyalty.

"My Prince," he greets.

"Mamoru."

Kunzite's eyes brighten with amusement. He bows. The respect almost always feels misplaced.

"You look well," he says, and Mamoru feels flustered, standing. There are pieces of kunzite scattered atop a few books and papers. "And worried," the former general adds. "More so than usual."

Mamoru rubs his face. "I'm always worried," he says.

"What can I do?"

Kunzite's words are simple and sharp. He looks over and the man bows, sinking into the carpet. It's strange to think that this is a _man_ and a ghost. Mamoru has long since given up when his former advisors appear to them; they are dead, they are not dead, they are here and penance is nothing but enduring, cruel, and resilient.

He remains watching him. It's the only thing he understands to do. His memories aren't bright and full of a more vibrant past. It's how he envies Usagi, time and time again, watching her and the girls learn together and apart and grow and knot and stay. They are there for him but he's expendable without his memories, useless to him and to Usagi without anything to fall back on. It makes him desperate.

"They'll come back."

Kunzite stands and stares. "End -- Mamoru?"

"My memories," he says. "Whatever they are, _were_. They'll come back and I'll have some kind of sense to hold onto when I need it."

"If that's what you want," Kunzite replies.

He scoffs and moves back to sit. His head drops against the couch. Usagi will arrive soon, he thinks.

"I don't know."

The other man is quiet. There is a rustle. He thinks about how Kunzite might move, appear, and come through, back and forth, the revolving door of questions that seems to grow and fight endlessly.

But then he moves to him, sitting, kneeling before Mamoru. His hands are trembling and Mamoru thinks: _i am not supposed to see this_ and somehow that makes him even more restless than before. Kunzite shifts though, pushing his hands onto Mamoru's face. His fingers are cold. His eyes widen and his mouth opens to reply.

It's Kunzite that sighs, older, with the response.

"This is what I can give you," he says.

-

Usagi buys Chibi-Usa ice cream. The angry flush is gone. The look on her face is blank, but he watches her watch the younger girl skip ahead before they go and meet the others. Luna has information. Chibi-Usa still wants the crystal.

He touches the inside of Usagi's wrist.

"I'm sorry," he says.

She blinks and looks up. "For what?"

"For giving the girls --" he doesn't, _can't_ completely address it, "-- for letting the girls see the others," he admits, flushing. "Especially with all of this."

Usagi shakes her head. "If it wasn't you, it would be me." Selfishly, he is reminded that he is the one that gets to see her the most like this. Her gaze wise and tight; the young contradiction. "I know how naive it is to want them happy," she says. "I see how angry Mina-chan is. Rei keeps secrets because she's exhausted and doesn't know how to break that habit. Ami-chan and Makoto-chan prefer to stay lonely to protect me."

Something crosses her face and he knows that he is looking at Serenity, not Usagi, and then both Serenity _and_ Usagi. The ridiculous envy is back again and he doesn't know how to embrace those memories as easily as she has, especially since he can only remember the beginning of those final moment, much like the girls.

"And," Usagi adds quietly. "You need to let yourself have your time as well."

In front of them, Chibi-Usa trips and falls and starts to sob, blame Usagi for the loss of her ice cream a mere feet away. He shares a look with Usagi and watches the change in her features; she smiles softly, then she steels herself, and then she marches to the girl away from him.

He watches them too. They fight. Chibi-Usa glares, but Usagi's got her wrapped around her finger, just as much as she has him and the other, and the two girls march ahead, back to the ice cream stand as he follows behind him. He loses his thoughts.

The desire is simple.

He wants to want those memories back. He knows how to need them.

-

Mamoru kisses Usagi before they separate for school. He's shy but he smiles into her mouth and she laughs as she buries her fingers in his coat, pulling him closer, over her because he's too _tall_ and she needs something different to tease him about.

In the afternoon, he goes and buys coffee. There is a shop closer to his place. He finds a few books for Chibi-Usa and rolls his eyes into buying another manga for Usagi because he is embarrassingly curious about the story that keeps sneaking over her math homework after all.

The man at the counter has his back turned though. He's a customer, he realizes after a minute, and there's a twitch, his hand moving to and from the tea at his side. Mamoru cannot help but face some kind of familiarity because facts are facts and he gave the truth to the girls first, as if to say that he was going to carry their mistakes for them.

His eyes widen. The man almost drops his book. His tea spills everywhere and some hits Mamoru's jacket.

"Sorry," he says. "Sorry, _sorry_."

"It's fine," Mamoru manages. His throat is burning and he kneels to pick up the book. His fingers brush against the cover. "Here," he says. He tries to joke. "I should get better about announcing myself."

"I was in the way."

He shakes his head. His mouth opens and closes. The man sighs and hands him a napkin.

"I was --" he seems to hesitate. "I was wondering when we'd meet." He sighs. "I don't even understand it myself."

"Nephrite," Mamoru murmurs.

There is no sweeping bow. It goes unsaid.

-

"Why not the others?"

Nephrite, no Nathan buys him coffee. They move out of the coffee shop and start to walk. There's nothing in particular. Mamoru knows he's a flower shop owner and finishing school. There's nothing definite and although he knows he's seen Makoto, or at least has some suspicion that he has, it's nothing that they bring up or talk about.

"I don't know," Nathan says. "I have parents. I went to school. Then there was just this one day where it just sort of hit --"

"And there were blanks," Mamoru finishes quietly. He sips his coffee. "Then flashes," he continues. "You see pictures of people, faces, and names. You feel guilty. You feel hungry and angry and want to make some sense of something that you know you should know."

Nathan flushes. "Yeah." Then he looks into his cup. His hands are trembling and Mamoru almost reaches. "It got worse when I saw her. Except I'm -- and she -- you should have seen the way she looked at me."

There is nothing to say to that. Mamoru doesn't know how to find those words. His mouth is dry. He thinks he can see Usagi somewhere in back of his mind, the way her eyes brighten and widen and darken and make so much sense to see. She'd grab his hand, you know, and push him forward. He doesn't know how she's getting through it. There is nothing she can hide on her face, but it makes her the most mysterious one of them all.

He sneaks a good look at him. Nathan, he thinks. Nephrite, he thinks. Also the most mysterious one of all. He wouldn't have expected it to be Nephrite. Kunzite, of course. Jadeite, maybe. Even Zoisite before. But this is different, this feels different, and he doesn't even know where to begin.

"I don't know who I am yet."

Nathan looks up, startled. They've reached his shop. The bookstore is across the ways too. They've walked in a circle.

"Is this supposed to help?" Nathan asks, and it means it. He sounds tired and unconvinced and Mamoru feels less of whatever it is he is supposed to be in all of this.

This is the first time he really feels tired.

-

In the morning, Usagi is sitting up in his bed. She is watching; she knows he's awake and it takes him a moment to look to adjust to the brightness in the room. She likes sleeping with the curtains open.

"I don't dream anymore," he says, sleepily, but he's aware and alert and her fingers are brushing over his face. "It's like he doesn't want me to remember everything."

They have a moment before they are going to go and meet the others at the temple. He hasn't promised Nathan anything. The stones are still sitting outside his room too. It makes sense and then it doesn't.

But she smiles, and then he breathes, really breathes, brushing his mouth back against her fingers.

"Things are only a little different," she says.

He smiles but only wistfully. "You think?"

Usagi nods, looking to his windows. His hand follows the plane of her arm, then slows and curls around her leg.

"Our choices," she says. It goes unsaid: _my choices_.

He studies her, sighing. "Usako."

She looks back at him and then suddenly, too suddenly, she is looking at him and he can see everything leads into her agelessness. It terrifies him that she's there, already there, and there is a part of him that wonders if and when she's going to leave him behind. But he sees secrets there, something is _there_ and it's the first time that he finds himself really facing the fragments of who he thinks he is. His mouth dries.

"I'm not going to leave you behind," she says. "So take what you need."

-

That night, he sits and sifts through the pieces of the stones.

He separates by memory.


End file.
